CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION OF PRINCIPLES 148

INTRODUCTION

A controversy is persistently carried on between an increasing body

of the non-professional laity and an important section of the medical

profession, in relation to the methods pursued in investigating

biological phenomena.

The criticism of medical research by non-medical people is naturally

resented by some who are engaged in experimentation, and it is stated

seriously that non-scientific persons will impede progress if they

interfere with or succeed in restricting the efforts of those who

specially devote themselves to this branch of research.

This controversy is still going on in ever-widening circles, and it

is bound to do so until the present confusion of thought which exists

on this subject is removed, and the broad distinction between right

and wrong experimentation is more fully acknowledged and more clearly

defined. Our relation to the lower animals has never yet been brought

fully into the clear light of reason and conscience. Yet in the order

of Providential development it must so come forward.

As advancing humanity has gradually recognised natural rights as

existing in the various races of mankind, and is carrying on a

persistent warfare against human slavery, and slowly awakening to the

moral crime of introducing disease and vice amongst native races,

and the rights as well as duties of women and of children are being

gradually recognised, so the time has come when the natural rights of

inferior living creatures must be seriously studied.

This study has become obligatory, not only in regard to the welfare

of the brute creation, but for the sake of our own human growth as

rational and moral beings.

* * * * *

The common-sense of mankind recognises our right to use the lower

animals for human benefit, whilst our superior intelligence gives us

the power to so use them. But ‘can’ and ‘ought’ are different aspects

of our mental constitution, which require to be harmonized. What we can

do is not the true measure of what we ought to do in any department of

life.

We can starve a child or lash a horse to death, but we have no right to

do so.

The laws of our human constitution compel us to recognise that

intellect and conscience, although essential parts, are not identical

parts of our nature. Long experience shows us that social progress can

only become permanent when conscience guides intelligence.

How far the guidance of conscience can extend, with the practical

results to medical research involved in the recognition of such

guidance, forms the subject of present consideration.

CHAPTER I

_The Growth of Conscience_

It is through the gradual and harmonious development of intelligence

with that element in our nature that we name conscience that the human

race passes from lower to higher states of civilization. In pursuing

our ideals, conscience is our instinctive monitor of right and wrong.

Our great naturalist, Darwin, laid down as a law of evolution that

‘the moral sense, or conscience, is by far the most important of the

differences between man and the lower animals. Duty--“ought”--is the

most noble of all the attributes of man.’

Victor Hugo, with the prophetic insight of genius, calls conscience

‘that modicum of innate science with which each one is born.’

The growth of human conscience in its perception of justice and in its

sympathetic relation to creation is the surest measure of individual

and national progress. Various intellectual theories may be formed as

to the origin and growth of conscience. It may be held to be intuitive,

springing up as inevitably as the instinctive feelings born with the

natural relations of life; or it may be looked upon as gradually

evolved, the ‘result of countless experiences of fear, love, utility,

transmitted through generations.’

But however originating, conscience is a positive and potent fact.

It is, indeed, the mightiest factor in social life. It is the great

controller of selfhood. It enlarges human character and guides human

conduct. The deepening of this principle through the growth of justice

and sympathy marks an advancement in the type of humanity. Increasing

respect for life is one of the clearest signs of growing conscience.

Our reverence for the principle of life grows with our enlarging

intellectual perception of its universality and its unlimited power of

development.

As life is marked by activity, and cannot remain stationary, so

conscience shares this law of life. It must inevitably advance or

retrograde.

The degradation as well as the development of conscience may be seen

amongst us in the midst of our present civilization. It is contrary to

the most rudimentary element of conscience to feed upon one’s kind, and

cannibal tribes who devour their captives represent the lowest type

of humanity; even the dogs of the Arctic voyager will endure the slow

agony of starvation for days before their human taskmasters can compel

them to eat the flesh of their companions. The well-known naturalist,

Mr. W. H. Hudson, states that wolves, when pressed with hunger, will

sometimes devour a fellow-wolf; as a rule, however, rapacious animals

will starve to death rather than prey upon one of their own kind.

Yet shipwrecked sailors, even of our own English race, have been

known to drink the blood and eat the flesh of their own comrades when

confronted by starvation.

We find that intelligence may exist without conscience, but the human

type changes to a destructive force when this separation takes place. A

lamentable example of the social danger created by the destruction or

absence of rudimentary conscience amongst us is shown by the betrayal

and murder of the little boy Eccles in Liverpool, for the sake of his

clothes, by his two companions of eight and nine years old. There was

the deliberate plot to entice him to a pond; the throwing him three

times into the water as he scrambled out; the final holding him under

water until all struggle had ceased. These facts make a striking, but

not unique, object-lesson, showing how intelligence may exist without

conscience amongst all our appliances of civilization, and the danger

of such separation.

Examples of the social devastation produced by official corruption and

business dishonesty are too numerous to be detailed; they are seen in

what are called civilized countries--in London, Paris, Rome, and across

the ocean. The lack of conscience in public and private transactions

creates social misery proportioned to its extent.

Recognising, therefore, that this distinctive principle of conscience

is a fact of gradual development, that it grows by the union of

the moral with the intellectual elements in our nature, and that

the far-reaching consequences for good or evil of vivid or dulled

conscience in the individual and the nation are far beyond our power

of foresight, a grave responsibility rests upon us in this matter.

We are bound to realize that any custom, or method of education, or

proposed course of action, that seems to violate the natural instincts

of humanity, or is contrary to the present enlightened conscience of

any section of our Anglo-American race, demands imperatively the most

careful consideration on our part.

CHAPTER II

_Conscience in Medicine_

Every intelligent member of the medical profession will certainly

recognise the special value of human conscience in the profession.

The problems which are involved in the practice of the beneficent art,

the absolute reliance which the anxious patient is compelled to place

in his physician, the helplessness of the poor, who form so large

a majority of those who need medical aid, and who are without the

defences of wealth and station, show the need of keen moral sense, as

well as intelligence, in those who practise the art of medicine.

The very discoveries of medical science enforce this necessity; for the

possibility of abuse in the employment of such beneficent agents as

anæsthetics and hypnotism, by incompetent or conscienceless operators,

is a very serious fact.

This special responsibility of the medical profession to society is

greatly increased by the fact that the training of a very large section

of our intelligent youth during the important years of early manhood

rests upon them. The moral as well as intellectual influence exerted

by those who guide the college, the hospital, the dispensary, and

post-graduate classes, will mould the future action of one of the most

influential portions of the community--those, viz., on whom the health

of the nation chiefly rests.

Now, whilst all recognise the need of the trained and skilful care

of a nation’s health, and perceive also that rightly organized

medical schools and hospitals are of great value in educating our

health-guardians, how is it that a profound distrust of these

institutions has grown up in our midst, that the support of hospitals

becomes increasingly difficult, whilst at the same time the sentiment

of benevolence and desire to help the poor is constantly extended?

How is it that the beneficent and necessary art of medicine no longer

commands that respect and confidence which its essential character as

part of our social institutions would seem to demand?

The answer to these serious questions involves both moral and

intellectual considerations. These problems have arisen from failure

to perceive that in education moral and intellectual activity cannot

be advantageously divorced, or that one portion of our complex nature

cannot be beneficially developed whilst other portions are entirely

ignored or injured.

Our medical schools, whilst sharpening the intellectual faculties of

their students, must be careful that their modes of teaching bring with

them no deterioration of that important faculty of their students--the

moral sense. As conscience or the moral sense is unequally developed

in human beings, but is indispensable to the physician in his relations

with patients, any apathy or negligence in this respect by the trainers

of youth may become a national danger.

CHAPTER III

_The Moral Element in Research_

Morality as a guide in biological science is based upon the practical

distinction between organic and inorganic Nature.

If medical progress simply involved the investigation of inorganic

Nature, the general public would be only learners, gladly receiving

such information in geology, chemistry, astronomy, or physics, as

specialists in those branches of physical science were good enough to

impart to the unlearned.

But directly scientific research passes beyond the distinctive realm of

matter, moulded and transformed by general energy, but not affected by

individual will, it has to deal with a very different principle--viz.,

life. This vital distinction has been well laid down by one of our

eminent medical authorities as follows: ‘During the slow growth of

medical knowledge it has become more and more plain that physics,

chemistry, and biology are distinct sciences, with methods of their own

and inductions of their own, each of the latter terms in the series

using the results of its predecessors, and adding new results of its

own. Although life is a structure built up of physical and chemical

facts, yet to the building, to the arrangement, to the ordering of

those facts, there goes something that neither physics nor chemistry

can explain, any more than algebra can explain the behaviour of a

magnet. To strive to interpret the series of events which make up the

life of an animal in terms of chemical change (metabolism), or of

conservation or expenditure of energy, is an endeavour which will fail.’

As the brute creation as well as human beings share in a physical

organization which expresses each variety of life, there is not the

same sharply-dividing line between the various categories of animal

life as there is between organic and inorganic Nature. Biogenesis, or

life generated by life, is the distinctive feature of organic Nature.

We are linked to living creatures of higher or lower nature by the

power of educating or subduing them, and by all those varying relations

involved in the mystery of life.

The distinctive position of man, as an animal placed at the head of the

animal world, necessarily creates serious responsibility on the part of

the higher towards the lower creature.

This basis of moral responsibility extends in kind, if not in degree,

to all life. It necessitates a directing conscience which shall guide

all our intellectual and practical relations with every category of

life.

This moral element enters unavoidably into our treatment of animal

life from its lowest to its highest form. Our treatment of a monkey or

a prince contains an element of moral attitude which does not exist in

our relation to inorganic Nature.

It is a difference of kind as well as of degree, which it is blindness

to ignore.

The divergence which now exists between some biological investigators

and their critics rests upon the failure to recognise that moral error

may engender intellectual error.

The special subject which has produced this controversy is the present

method of using the lower animals in biological research, which has so

enormously extended of late years. The essence of the controversy is

the ethical question--viz., Have we a right to torture?

It must be distinctly understood that there is here no question of our

right under certain circumstances to put to death. Neither is there a

doubt of the utility of rational experiment and of research. But the

right to put to death in the most humane manner known to us, and the

right to torture to death, are two widely different questions.

We have no right, for any purpose whatever, to torture a living

creature to death, either by the mutilation of the organs, the slow

deprivation of the necessary conditions of life, or the still slower

process of destroying by the inoculation of disease.

CHAPTER IV

_Right and Wrong Method_

It must be carefully noted that the wrong involved in inflicting

torture upon a living creature is the violation of a rational

principle. The employment of torture or of painful experiment in

biological research is not a question of the right to gain knowledge;

it is a question of how we seek to gain knowledge. It applies directly

to method.

Thus, the fact observed by Paget, that in a patient who vomited all

fat, the pancreas alone was found on post-mortem examination to be

diseased, is worth more than a series of experiments on lower animals

of different constitution from our own.

In the slow approach towards truth, which is the great object of

science, no single method is indispensable. The human mind is so full

of activities, Nature presents such an infinite variety of resources,

that progress in research can never be hindered by the choice of right

instead of wrong method.

This is well stated by one of our most experienced investigators when

he says: ‘Methods run with the manners and customs of the ages. In

science there is no one method that can be considered indispensable.

Attributes are indispensable; observation, industry, accuracy, are

indispensable; methods are not. They may be convenient, they may be

useful, they may be expedient, but nothing more.’[10]

This admirable statement throws a flood of light upon the confusion

and perplexity of the present controversy. It shows the error of both

the so-called unscientific and scientific parties. It shows the error

(not unnatural), in the former, of confounding together experiment,

research, laboratory, and scientific investigation, and classing them

under one indiscriminate ban of cruelty; it also shows the narrow

vision and false reasoning of those who claim that right and wrong have

no meaning when applied to the investigation of phenomena supposed to

be revealed by the senses, or state that the collecting of so-called

facts, named knowledge, is an end in itself, to be unrestrained and

justified in itself.

That interesting book, _The Naturalist in La Plata_, in narrating the

author’s observation of the natural fearlessness of all wild animals

towards man, the careful research into life-habits that can be carried

on where this fearlessness is not betrayed, and the susceptibility

to kindness which exists amongst all the lower animals to their

sovereign, man, furnishes a striking and delightful suggestion as to

the _method_ which future research should take.[11]

It is the distinctive moral relation existing in the plane of animal

life that makes our connection with the organic world a different and

more comprehensive relation than that which exists with inorganic

Nature. It places research in the biological sciences on a different

plane from study of the physical sciences.

Therefore, whilst it would be folly for ordinary people to criticise

the methods of experts in physical science, it would be dastardly

dereliction of duty not to consider the methods employed in biological

science.

The subject of experimentation upon the lower animals having two

aspects--an ethical and an intellectual one--the medical profession

will be wise to welcome all honest and kindly criticism and suggestion

in the most difficult of all studies--viz., the study of life. It must

be recognised that the people are absolutely in their right in refusing

to submit to dictation in what concerns their relation to animal life,

of which they are the responsible head.

CHAPTER V

_The Necessity of Medical Research_

Whilst fully recognising the right of the laity to criticise scientific

method when it deals with sentient animals, fashioned on the same

general plan as ourselves, and capable of fear, pain, affection and

gratitude, there is another aspect of the subject which we are bound to

consider.

The present condition of medicine is that of an art, not of a science.

It is erroneous to speak of the science of medicine. There exists

uncertainty in diagnosis, uncertainty in the action of remedies,

ignorance of individual idiosyncrasy, and terrible inability to meet

such devastating diseases as cancer, consumption, leprosy, etc.

No one outside the profession can fully realize the grave

responsibility, even desperate anxiety, felt by the conscientious

physician when life or death seems to depend upon his action and he

knows that medical resources are not equal to the occasion. It is a

noble desire for the advancement of the beneficent art of medicine

which makes the great body of busy doctors eagerly listen to those

who are supposed to speak with authority, and hail with hope every

announcement of supposed discovery which seems to promise improved

practical results.

This is really a sound humane attitude of mind in that vast body of

the profession who are unable, from the pressure of practical life, to

devote themselves to investigation--a profession which has always had

its heroes and martyrs, who have not shrunk from risking their lives in

the service and for the advancement of their noble art.

Those also who are in the profession can most fully estimate the

real and beneficial results, both in surgery and medicine, derived

from careful and persistent research, notwithstanding the severe

disappointment often caused by the theoretical error and unjustifiable

practice resulting from rivalry in erroneous methods of investigation.

The conquest of pain and diminution of nervous shock in necessary

surgical operations,[12] the disappearance of blood-poisoning, hospital

gangrene, and erysipelas, which were the scourges of our public

institutions in a former generation, are immense gains, due to the

discovery of anæsthetics, antiseptics, and to advancing sanitation.

These blessings are the direct outcome of persevering and skilful

clinical observation, of careful work in the laboratory, of humane

experiment, and of happy accident; they are not derived from cruel

experimentation.

The successful control of that terrible disease--puerperal fever--which

formerly destroyed such a multitude of women, is a striking conquest of

humane method in modern medicine. When I was a student in La Maternité

of Paris in 1849, this destructive malady of lying-in women produced

a mortality varying from 10 to 15 per cent. But when I visited La

Maternité in 1889 the mortality was reduced to a little over 1 per

cent. This was due to rigorous cleanliness, sanitation, and the use

of antiseptics, directed by the skilful _sage femme en chef_, Madame

Henri, in spite of the old and unsuitable buildings and the depressing

status of many of the patients.

A still more satisfactory result is shown in the Clapham Maternity

Hospital, in London, where not a single death occurred amongst the 760

cases first received into the institution.

This excellent result still continues under the same administration. Of

the 4,000 lying-in cases received in the hospital during the thirteen

years it has existed, there has been no death from puerperal fever.

This excellent record has been attained by scrupulous cleanliness,

absolute isolation on the occurrence of suspicious symptoms, by

excellent nursing, and constant oversight by the doctors in charge.

Even in the out-patient department, where the conditions of living are

not under such strict medical control, the deaths from this frightful

malady have only amounted to 5 in 12,500 cases under the same

enlightened direction.

This great and beneficent reform in the first and world-wide branch

of medicine, by means of which the lives of innumerable women in all

our large centres of civilization have been saved, is the result of

scientific research. It was initiated and successfully carried out

by Semmelweis, of Vienna, and is a striking instance of the value

of research carried on by the use of the comparative method, with

absolutely no resort to experiment. The history of this reform, the

methods by which it was accomplished, the opposition it encountered in

the profession itself, and its triumphant vindication, are well worth

serious study. An account of this valuable investigation and other

important discoveries by justifiable methods of inquiry are given to

English readers by the admirable translation published by the New

Sydenham Society.[13]

Medical research, therefore, is not only justifiable, but obligatory in

a profession that is specially charged with the care and advancement

of individual and national health, and, as will be seen later,

observation, induction, and rational experiment form the essential

methods of scientific inquiry.

These two facts--viz., the necessity of advance in medical knowledge

and the methods of investigation necessary for such advance--must

be distinctly recognised by sincere reformers, and should shield the

profession from that indiscriminate reproach which is often made

against it as a whole; for such hostility tends to strengthen that

undue _esprit de corps_ which often hinders sound medical progress in

the profession.

CHAPTER VI

_Restriction of Experiment_

When we investigate the popular or ethical aspect of so-called

scientific research made upon living animals, we are at once met by

facts which imperatively demand both serious thought and determined

action if we would not be participators in the degradation of human

conscience. We are confronted with the enormous increase in such

experiments which has taken place within the last thirty years, as well

as in the severity of the sufferings inflicted. This increase is going

on in England as well as in foreign countries.[14] It is growing in

many cases, not only without any benefit to the human race, but also

without reference to any supposed beneficial result as its attempted

justification.

The volume of facts and evidence collected by Mr. Colam (the able

Secretary of the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals), and

published by that society in 1876, is a permanent record of great

value. It enables us to measure the growth of experimentation in

England, not only from 1862 to 1876, when the present Cruelty to

Animals Bill was enacted, but it also forms a point of comparison for

testing the increase of vivisectional methods since 1876 to the present

day, when these easy but often fallacious methods of research have

become universal in medical investigation and medical instruction.

In 1869 there were very few places where the experimentation on animals

could be carried on, such investigations being made by men of rare

ability, and for a definite object. There were no class demonstrations

and no students encouraged to experiment. But in 1892 there were 180

persons licensed in this country, and over 3,960 experiments performed,

numbers which increase with each year.

_The Effect on Students and Subordinates._--A point for serious

consideration is the effect produced upon the unformed minds of

students of medicine by the introduction of experimentation upon living

animals into our medical schools and hospitals.

The employment of destructive experimentation on living creatures

is now introduced as a part of the ordinary instruction of medical

students in the fundamental study--physiology. This is a novelty of

the present generation. During the whole course of my medical studies,

fifty years ago, I never saw a living creature vivisected for the

instruction of students. The same is true of the experience of most of

the able physicians of an older generation.

Now, however, nearly every medical school has its store of imprisoned

living creatures awaiting their fate, from the large frogs imported

from Germany, the mice, rabbits, cats, and dogs of home production,

to the cargoes of monkeys brought to our foggy climate from tropical

Africa. They form an enormous mass of living creatures, kept for the

attempted demonstration of vital action in the lecture-room, or for the

study of diseased processes in the physiological laboratory.

It is a fallacy (although proclaimed in high places) that the ordinary

student of medicine must be prepared for his practical work as a

physician for men by watching the opening of chest, abdomen, brain,

or cutting into the delicate vital organs of lower animals. Such

demonstration is a thrilling spectacle to inexperienced students. It

appeals to that love of excitement which makes them rush to a surgical

operation, or to an extraordinary medical case, whilst the commonplace

but all-important bedside observation seems dull in comparison. Yet

patient work in the anatomical and microscopic rooms, and in the

chemical laboratory for general and animal chemistry and close clinical

study, all of which involve no form of suffering, are of primary

importance. The genius of a Professor as an instructor is shown by his

ability to make his pupils realize this.

Destructive experimentation on helpless animals, not for their own

benefit, is a demoralizing practice. The student becomes familiar

with the use of gags, straps, screws, and all the paraphernalia of

ingenious instruments invented for overpowering the resistance of the

living creature, or for guarding the operator from injury in case the

anæsthetic, when used, should give out too soon. He learns also how

easy it is to experiment in secret.

By advanced instruction and post-graduate classes the student is led

on to take active part under licensed authority in this fascinating,

but morally dangerous, method of study. Moreover, the large body of

subordinates who are necessary to take charge of and prepare the

animals, are trained in indifference to suffering, without any excuse

of intellectual gain, and the same injurious influence extends in

ever-widening circles--to the traders who invent and sell instruments

of torture, and to those who supply the living material.

Now, the natural instinct to be cherished in human beings is protection

and kindliness to infancy and all helpless creatures, not indifference

to suffering or wilful infliction of it. As human conscience is a thing

of growth or degradation, the natural shrinking from needless pain can

soon be hardened into callousness. Conversing with medical students in

relation to the effect made upon them by witnessing vivisections even

under chloroform, I have found that their experience is always the

same--viz., first, the shock of repulsion, then tolerance, and then, if

often repeated, indifference.

The moral deterioration necessarily induced in those to whom suffering

becomes a frequent spectacle is noted by the _Englishman in Paris_,

from personal experience. After speaking of the inhumanity produced

by the daily sight of blood in the originally honest bourgeois, who

became the ‘Conventionnels’ of the French Revolution in 1793, he writes

as follows: ‘I have witnessed three executions. After Pommeraye’s

execution I was ill for a week; after Troppmann’s the effect soon

wore off in three days; after Campa’s I ceased to think about it in

twenty-four hours. Then I made a vow that no power on earth should draw

me to the Place de la Roquette again. But men generally regard their

growing imperviousness as a sign of mental force, and pride themselves

upon it.’

In Marie Bashkertseff’s _Journal_ is a striking passage which describes

the effect of a Spanish bull-fight. She says: ‘I was able to maintain a

tranquil air in full view of the butchery, carried on with the utmost

refinement of cruelty. One leaves the scene slightly intoxicated with

blood, and feeling desirous to thrust a lance into the neck of every

person one meets. I stuck my knife into the melon I was cutting at

table as if it were a banderilla I were planting in the hide of a bull,

and the pulp seemed like the palpitating flesh of the wounded animal.

The sight is one that makes the knees tremble and the head throb. It is

a lesson in murder.’

The moral distinction between heroism shown when suffering is

witnessed for the purpose of aiding the sufferer and that evinced for

the selfish desire of individual gain or excitement, was strikingly

exhibited by a German nurse whom we sent on to the army during the

Civil War in America. This frail-looking woman drifted on to the front,

and, after the Battle of Gettysburg, donning a pair of man’s boots,

wading in pools of blood and mud, spent two days and nights on the

field of slaughter, drawing out still breathing bodies from the heaps

of slain, binding up wounds, giving a draught of water, placing a rough

pillow under the head, in an unselfish enthusiasm that knew neither

hunger nor fatigue. The ghastly wounds, the blood, the shrieks and

groans of that horrid scene served but as fuel to the fire of humanity

that consumed her.

_The Effect on Teachers or Practitioners of Medicine._--In considering

the subject of experimentation, reason requires that we realize the

necessary distinction between the methods employed in training students

for a practical profession and the exceptional position of the few

geniuses who possess the rare combination of qualities essential to

scientific investigation. In calling attention to this distinction we

do not condone torture, for this can be proved to be unscientific. But

it emphasizes a growing and mischievous evil of the present day when

numbers of ordinary teachers of physiology, whose gifts are limited and

whose especial business is to instruct students in the knowledge which

has been attained, consider themselves capable of original scientific

research, or attempt to repeat before either students or popular

audiences so-called demonstrations on living creatures.

The showy plan of experimenting on animals is undoubtedly a great

temptation to teachers. Such practice readily gains the gratifying

applause of inexperienced learners, who are misled by an appearance of

conclusiveness in the lectures, which they are quite incompetent to

gauge. But the influence thus exercised is a harmful one, diverting the

mind from right methods of study.

The temptation to make a display before imperfectly informed persons is

too great. If the profession is to advance in popular esteem, it will

recognise that the unfeeling destruction of living creatures, even the

pithing of a frog or the dissection of the salivary glands of a living

mouse, is a false method of forming the minds of students, which should

be entirely abandoned.

We must here note the demand lately made by some leading members of the

profession for increased facilities for experimentation on animals.

Now, anyone who studies the Cruelty to Animals Bill (30 and 40 Vict.),

which in 1876 licensed vivisection in Great Britain,[15] will see how

easy it now is to obtain a license, and how carefully the provisions

of the Bill are arranged to give freedom to experimentation--in fact,

to protect experimenters rather than their helpless victims. Thus,

whilst in Section 2 a penalty of £100 or three months’ imprisonment is

imposed for acts of cruelty, the Bill proceeds in Section 3 to give

absolute freedom to every licensed person to torture, to mutilate,

to disease to any extent if he considers it advisable to do so. In

Section 11 it gives exceedingly wide scope for procuring licenses. By

Sections 7 to 10 it makes the efficient oversight of licensed persons

almost impossible, and by the provisions of Sections 13 to 15 it

virtually excludes the influence of growing humanitary conscience in

the community from being exerted on the persons and places licensed.

In short, the Bill would rather seem to be skilfully devised to give

a free hand to persons who may call themselves ‘scientific’ than to

protect living creatures who cannot protect themselves.

The plea put forward by the gentlemen referred to--viz., that medical

progress is now hindered in England by restrictions--is practically a

justification by them of the inhuman practices which prevail in France,

Germany, Russia, and the United States, and in all countries where

the conscience of the people has not been aroused to the moral and

intellectual dangers involved in the torture of animals.[16]

Surely these English physicians who demand entire freedom for

vivisection do not realize what the result of foreign methods is. They

cannot have noted the innumerable examples of atrocious cruelty which

are occurring in the records of medical research as practised on the

Continent and in America.

They cannot have taken note of such typical examples as the utterly

useless barbarity of Senn of Philadelphia, setting fire to a dog

that he had pumped full of hydrogen gas, before the Medical Congress

of Berlin in 1890. Nor the experiments in massage on a series of

large disjointed dogs performed in Professor Charles Richet’s Paris

laboratory, not only with the permission, but with the consultative

advice of that gentleman. A set of more unjustifiable experiments were

never devised.

Certainly, no body of honourable English physicians who are in the

habit of reading _Les Archives Générales de Médecine_ would fail to

condemn such fallacious experiments, where the pretence of anæsthesia

served to diminish the resistance of the victims--not to annihilate

pain.

_Factors in Human Nature._--It must never be forgotten that gambling

excitement or the spirit of undue emulation exists in all classes

of men--in biological investigators as well as others--and it needs

guidance or restraint.

The German officer Reizenstein felt keen remorse for the murder of

his beautiful Irish mare Lippespringe, yet he and his companions

tortured thirty horses to death under the temporary insanity of intense

rivalry. But it was possible to bring public conscience to bear on

this barbarity, and thus check the recurrence of any similar future

aberration.

So in biological research we see the disastrous effects of individual

and national rivalry. They are shown in the contradictory results of

false methods of observation, in the endless repetition of similar

painful experiments, in the strife of conflicting theories, and in

the practical failure of results obtained from the lower animals when

applied to the human race.

The moral sense of a noble profession may well be appealed to to create

a conscience which shall check the present grave abuses of so-called

research.

CHAPTER VII

_Prurigo Secandi_

Another serious ethical danger connected with unrestrained experiment

on the lower animals is the enormous increase of audacious human

surgery, which tends to overpower the slower but more natural methods

of medical art and to divert attention from hygiene.

This modern increase of surgery, entailing permanent mutilation, has

received a special name, prurigo secandi, or cacoethes secandi. It

prevails in France and in every country where no restraint is placed on

animal experimentation,[17] or where the importance of not injuring

the moral sense of students has not been recognised.

The great increase in ovariotomy, and its extension to the insane is a

notable result of this prurigo secandi.

Dr. Chanu, in his carefully-prepared thesis of 1896, in exposing

the grave abuse of this branch of surgery, estimates that there

were 500,000 castrated women in France, and one in every 250 women

throughout Europe. He finds the decrease of the birth-rate to coincide

with the abuse of ovariotomy. ‘Dr. Chanu affirmed, before a jury unable

to refute his assertion, that the abuse of ovariotomy has done more

harm to France in ten years than the Prussian bullets did in 1870, and

that the causes of the depopulation of France are closely allied to the

practice of the castration of women.’

The prevention of disease in the organs of generation must be sought

for persistently in improved education of the young--the male as well

as the female--and in _just_ relations of the sexes.

Of the same nature as the prurigo secandi of medical practice is the

motive or source of much of the laboratory experimentation.

The various ethical dangers resulting from conscienceless or irrational

experiments on animals demand much more serious consideration by the

profession than has hitherto been given to them. In the opinion of an

increasing number of intelligent physicians, a vast amount of what is

now presumptuously called research--experiments disguised under learned

names, but which are really the irrational mutilating and diseasing of

sentient living creatures--are no more _scientific_ research than is

the gratification of a child’s curiosity when it sticks a pin with a

thread through a cockchafer, to see how long it will fly and how loud

it will buzz. The child, when punished for its thoughtless cruelty,

might remonstrate in learned terms that it should not be restrained,

for it was investigating the vital endurance of the _Melolontha

vulgaris_ and the acoustic properties of its wing-covers, under

interesting and abnormal conditions.

A large proportion of what is simply conscienceless curiosity, often

starting from more or less frivolous tentative diversions of the

laboratory, though now by courtesy named research, is no more valuable

than the child’s spinning of the cockchafer, and should be as sharply

checked.

The genesis of discovery in biology, with its necessary relations to

therapeutics, has yet to be written. Extending experience is more and

more clearly showing us, as a practical fact, that whilst observation

and rational--_i.e._, humanely limited--experiment are legitimate

and noble efforts for the attainment of improved medicine, cruel

and merely curious experiment, condemned by our moral faculties, are

misleading and mischievous.

Men like Professor Henschel, of Upsala, and Professor Pettenkofer, of

Munich, warn our eager young investigators against drawing conclusions

as to human beings from experiments made on animals.

We find, as a matter of fact, that all the _permanent_ advances of

medicine have been gained whilst pursuing rational and righteous

methods, whilst all the fiascoes of supposed discovery have resulted

through departing from them.

Anæsthetics, antiseptics, and sanitation are not the result of cruel

experimentation.

_Danger of Inoculation._--The most serious fallacy arising from

erroneous methods of biological research is the practice of vitiating

human blood by the introduction of the diseased products of animals.

This dangerous method, which threatens to undermine national health,

is the necessary outcome of diseasing animals on the plea of seeking

remedies for human disease.

The intellectual fallacy involved in this practice will be considered

later; but its ethical character as affecting conscience must here be

noted, as it is this line of research which is productive of the most

extended form of cruelty to the lower animals--viz., _slow_ torture.

The following extract from records of the Belgian Academy of Medicine

illustrates this subject: ‘Researches on the inoculability of cancer

ought to be encouraged. The numerous experiments made on animals are

still contradictory in results. Drs. Francotte and De Rector have in

the years 1891-92 inoculated mice under the skin of the shoulder. The

inoculations were carried on from June, 1891, to May, 1892, when the

following appearances were presented: The whole region of the shoulder

was inflamed; there was necrosis of the corresponding upper extremity,

which dropped off from dry gangrene; the stump left was indurated,

hard, and painful, whilst the lymphatic glands in connection with the

part were enlarged. The examination of the tumour disclosed nothing

very particular. The bones were the seat of osteoporosis, and the

arteries showed arteritis. The investigators believe the tumours were

cancerous, but this statement must be received with caution.’

Such long-continued torture, even of a mouse, is morally degrading,

and, as if in retribution, is doomed to be useless.

A Chinese medical author, Tuan Mei, writing in the last century, 1716

to 1797, lays down a true medical axiom when he marks the difference

between death and torture as follows: ‘Living creatures are for our

use, and we may put them to death. But we may not make death a boon,

and then withhold it from them.’

CHAPTER VIII

_What is Scientific Research?_

The apparent opposition between popular and medical judgment in

relation to certain methods of biological research which claim to be

scientific, necessitates a clearer knowledge of what science is, and

a recognition of the methods of research which can alone be called

scientific.

It is certain that knowledge of truth must reconcile varying but honest

opinions, and furnish plans of investigation that neither shock the

humane development of our nature nor hinder our intellectual progress

towards truth.

The terms ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ are constantly used and abused.

They are often applied to the accumulating of facts or of phenomena;

but such accumulation is not necessarily science, and may even hinder

science. For although the collecting of facts may bring together

valuable materials essential for future use, it may also bring together

rotten or sham materials, which will interfere with sound work. A

faulty method of endeavouring to obtain facts may seriously destroy

the value of the phenomena thus observed.

The gratification simply of intellectual activity or curiosity must

not be confounded with genuine research. Curiosity is the outcome

of ignorance. Now, our ignorance of much in Nature is no reproach

to anyone, but the way in which curiosity is gratified marks the

difference between the simple child and the rational adult. In the

childish development curiosity, though useful, is superficial and

short-sighted; it is necessarily a shallow impulse, which cannot

realize the wide relations of existence, and its satisfaction has no

necessary connection with the acquisition of valuable knowledge. But

the adult rises into a higher plane of thought. Curiosity is no longer

unduly exercised, but has grown into a love of truth. It has become

that reverential use of reason which is the basis of truth, and which

forms the true guide to the attainment of scientific knowledge; for

rational method does not isolate a fact from all its connections, but

sees it in its relations and in due proportion. Thus only can valuable

knowledge be acquired.

Neither is analysis science. It is only when the observations of

analysis are corrected and proved by synthesis that the truth of

science can be obtained.

A clear recognition of the different use of analysis and of synthesis

is essential in any claim of research to be called scientific.

‘Although by analysis we separate and by synthesis we combine, yet in

the synthesis there is more than in all the parts taken analytically.

The mere synthesis introduces something entirely new.’

Kant, in speaking of the use of analysis and synthesis in logic, lays

down the test of all scientific inquiry. He says: ‘Analysis is the

first and chief requirement in making our knowledge distinct. For

the more distinct our knowledge of a thing is, the stronger and more

effective it can be; only the analysis must not go so far that at last

the object itself disappears.’

Truth being a unity, the science which demonstrates it must correlate

all knowledge.

Science is not, therefore, an accumulation of isolated facts, or of

facts torn from their natural relations. To know a thing scientifically

is to know it in just relation to all other things. For science unites

and demands the exercise of our various faculties as well as of our

senses.

Science is proved knowledge. It is the study of causes and their

relations applied to facts; but such proof can only be obtained by

search which is in accordance with the laws of Nature--laws which are

gradually discovered by our race.

Natural law is deduced from all the facts of human experience, in

searching for and collecting which we must recognise the conditions

under which we are placed, the limitations of the present phase of our

intellectual powers, the gradual growth of conscience.

Science being proved truth, scientific method requires that all the

factors which concern the subject of research shall be duly considered,

in order to arrive at correct thought respecting the special subject of

inquiry.

The application of scientific method necessarily varies, therefore,

according to the subject under investigation.

Thus, the construction of a bridge and the calculation of an eclipse

equally involve the bases of scientific method--viz., observation,

deduction, and experiment; but each subject requires a special

application of scientific method, suited to the varying nature of the

subject of study.

Consequently, biological research, in order to be scientific, requires

a special modification of method, because the new factors of sensation

and consciousness come into play in biology--factors which do not exist

in astronomy, or geology, in mechanics, physics, or chemistry.

In order to attain truth respecting biology, therefore, the facts

concerning sensation and consciousness and their relation with, or

the way in which these new factors modify the facts of, physics and

chemistry must be carefully considered in this higher state which

we call life, or the investigation is not scientific, no matter how

interesting as an intellectual exercise.

When first endeavouring to find a recognised definition of the term

‘science,’ I consulted the latest _Encyclopædia Britannica_ of our

public library, thinking that from such an acknowledged authority a

correct statement could there be obtained. To my surprise, I found that

the word ‘science’ was not included in the list of subjects. Searching

further in this record of nineteenth-century thought, under the head

of ‘Biology’--that department which is ordinarily supposed to be the

science of life as distinguished from the consideration of non-living

things--the following principle was found to be laid down--viz., that

there was no essential difference between organized and unorganized

Nature, for life was simply a property of matter.

It is well to weigh the argument for this doctrine, which necessarily

destroys the essential idea of right and wrong, and removes the

foundation of good and evil. It is set forth in the following manner:

‘The abstract-concrete sciences are mechanics, physics, chemistry....

Whilst their subject-matter is found in a consideration of varied

concrete phenomena, they do not aim at a determination of certain

“abstract” quantitative relations and sequences known as “laws,”

which never are manifested in a pure form, but always are inferred

by observation and experiment upon complex phenomena, in which the

abstract laws are disguised by their simultaneous interaction.... These

sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry have for their object to

explain concrete phenomena by reference to the properties of matter set

forth in their generalizations.’

The following important dictum in regard to biology is thus laid down:

‘It is the business of those occupied with that branch to assign living

things in all their variety to the one set of forces recognised by the

physicist and chemist ... and its evolution’ (that is, the evolution of

life) ‘as the necessary outcome of those forces--the automatic product

of those same forces.... The discovery of the mechanical principle of

evolution completed the doctrine’ (of the material origin of life).

‘... It may be said to comprise the history of man, sociology, and

psychology--viz., the survival of the fittest in the struggle for

existence.’

This ignoring by the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ of any definition of

the word ‘science,’ and also the attempted reduction of life to a

property of matter, is, however, too limited a view of Nature to be

accepted by many thoughtful students of the present day. Turning,

therefore, to _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_, which is the latest expression

of the views of the able thinkers of North Britain, an explanation of

the term ‘science’ was found, which is far truer to advancing thought.

The comprehensive definition is there given that science ‘is the

correlation of all knowledge.’

As science searches for causes with their relations, and is proved

knowledge, so no branch of knowledge or method of acquiring knowledge

can be considered scientific which contradicts any facts of Nature, or

which bases its methods on the destruction of those facts.

Truth can only be arrived at by considering various or apparently

opposite aspects of human problems; so biological facts, or the

problems of organized or living creatures must be considered, not

simply from the side of ‘mechanics, physics, and chemistry, or the

automatic action of the forces of matter,’ but also from the equally

positive facts of life, and the forces which careful observation is

gradually showing to be enfolded in the fact of mind as developed

through protoplasm onward. The facts of affection, companionship,

sympathy, justice, are positive forces. They exercise a powerful

influence over the physical organization of all living creatures.

These mental forces can change the action of the bodily functions in

the most surprising manner, arresting the heart’s action, interfering

with secretion, or changing natural secretion into poison, and

destroying the normal and beneficial controlling action of the nervous

system. They are proved by experience to be so striking that they

cannot be overlooked in any unprejudiced investigation of natural

forces.

A fit of passion in a nursing mother has destroyed her infant;

the industrious cultivator seeing his field of strawberries, the

products of his toil, carried off by thieves, has fallen dead in his

vain efforts to stop the cruel depredation. But such instances are

world-wide, and corroborated by everyone’s experience. They prove that,

although the forces of mechanics, physics, and chemistry are employed

in the animal economy, there are also powers far beyond these limited

forces, which must be studied also in biological research, if we are to

learn how these physical may be overridden by mental forces. Without

such correlation of knowledge we fail to realize the unity of Nature,

and cannot attain to true science or proved knowledge.

It is thus seen that, as already stated, in useful scientific

investigation the object to be attained, the method to be employed, and

the application to be made of the knowledge searched for, must all be

considered in determining the distinction between genuine science and

simple unguided intellectual activity or curiosity.

It is necessary to emphasize the fact, because this vital distinction

is often overlooked in the claim now made for the grand term ‘science.’

In defining the meaning and scope of science as pursued by rational

beings, it must be recognised as a fundamental principle, which cannot

be too often dwelt upon, that what we can do, is not a measure of what

we ought to do. Thus, when Stanley attempted to excuse the infamous

action of his naturalist, Jameson,[18] by saying that he was a real

good fellow, but ‘his science misled him,’ he degraded the term

‘science’ by applying it to an act of morbid curiosity.

Again, when the Russian nobleman purchased a child and condemned it

to be brought up with a deaf and dumb nurse, under the unnatural

condition of deprivation of all social relations, his action was not

scientific, but a gratification of inhuman curiosity.

It is within our power apparently to drown an animal, human or brute,

and recover it to life again and again, but we gain no scientific

knowledge by so doing. We torture the creature and violate our natural

instincts, but we acquire no practical benefit to human welfare; on the

contrary, we endanger the mental integrity of the experimenter.

It is a short-sighted and hopeless attempt to do violence to Nature in

a search for scientific truth. Distinction must be made between the

possible and impossible in the conditions under which we are placed

in life. Thus, we cannot destroy the family relation, but we can make

it happy and conducive to the welfare of the race. We cannot change

the method of human generation, but we can spiritualize its exercise.

We cannot destroy the instinct of private property, but we can guide

and limit it. We cannot change structure, but we can educate it;

nor abolish curiosity, but we can restrain and direct it; nor check

invention, but it need not be applied to evil purposes. Neither can

we make races equal, but we can establish justice and mercy in the

relations of the stronger to the weaker.

This study of the natural laws which necessarily limit rational human

action applies with especial force to biological research, and explains

the reason for limiting scientific method.

Thus, the study of living creatures under unnatural or destructive

conditions, although it may be a well-meaning attempt to acquire

knowledge, is, nevertheless, a dangerous one. It is intellectually a

false method which may lead to practical error, and produce a labyrinth

of confusion and contradictory experience which hinders the attainment

of exact knowledge. It is morally a false method, because it injures

those elementary instincts of justice and mercy by whose evolution

civilization advances. Thus the progress of the race is retarded.

The present astounding multiplication of drugs, of inoculations, of

mutilations in the practice of medicine, with the eager attempt to

prove each new invention by a formidable array of imperfect statistics,

is a striking object lesson in the present day of the error into which

false methods of research have led many members of a noble and humane

profession. It is a fallacy necessarily proceeding from a wrong view of

what science really is.

Although this erroneousness is by no means solely connected with

vivisectional methods, yet if the high claim which the noble art of

medicine makes to advance our social well-being be justly founded, a

stringent obligation rests upon it not to injure the moral sense of its

members by the methods employed in education or in practice.

CHAPTER IX

_The Axiom of Science_

The fundamental law, without whose observance reliable biological

investigation is impossible, is stated as follows:

‘In studying the laws alike of organic and of inorganic Nature, the

experimenter must be careful not to destroy the phenomenon that is

being investigated.’

Intellectual error, as well as practical danger, arises from the

attempt to transfer to man results supposed to be gained by fallacious

experimentation on the lower animals. The fallacy consists in noting

general resemblance of structure, but not the far more remarkable

differences of function. If, for instance, the life habits of two dogs

of good breed are closely studied, it will be seen that, although

certain individual differences are observed between the dogs, yet they

are as nothing when compared with the enormous variation of function

between the dog and the human being. The bones and garbage swallowed

without injury, and the licking of its body, show the different type of

digestion and assimilation, the action of the kidneys, of the various

senses, and the possession of senses which we are unable to appreciate;

in short, its distinctive type of existence proves the impossibility

of drawing safe inferences for man from the digestive or other canine

functions. Again, observation and rational experiment, solely for the

benefit of one species of animal, may incidentally lead to the benefit

of other races of animals, but direct experiment on one type for the

supposed benefit of another kind is unscientific.

It is this error that vitiates the famous postulates of Professor Koch,

through the system of ‘controls,’ the latest exemplification of this

fallacy being the attempt to prove the existence of cholera in man by

cultivating the bacilli in animals. The same error also produces the

failure of M. Pasteur to prevent hydrophobia in man.

It is well known how the influence of what we term ‘mind’ governs the

action of the bodily functions, either promoting or disturbing their

normal condition. This is a fact of growing importance in practical

medicine. Similar influence is exerted in varying degrees on all living

creatures. Destructive or non-natural experimentation on living animals

is always subject to the fallacy of morbid condition.

The established law of research stated above exposes the error of

pursuing biological investigation (or the study of vital action) by the

process of mutilating or diseasing living animals.

In research the radical difference between inorganic and organic Nature

cannot be too clearly insisted on. Whilst in the former we can resolve

compounds into their elements and recombine them, such process is

impossible in organic Nature. We can take a steam-engine or a watch to

pieces, examine their parts, repair them, and put them together again,

thus proving our knowledge in this realm of Nature. But a living thing

cannot be treated in the same way. Not only the difference of animal

type forbids destructive method of investigation, but as the type rises

in the scale of creation the growing fact of individual idiosyncrasy

increases the uncertainty of erroneous method.

Therefore the law of scientific research, which forbids the destruction

of phenomena to be studied, is profoundly true.

If this law be not observed, intellectual activity may be gratified,

self-conceit or love of novelty and excitement may be pandered to, the

panic of fear in human beings may be worked upon, but the attainment of

scientific truth in biology will be impossible.

It is thus seen that methods of biological research which involve cruel

or destructive experimentation are both ethically unjustifiable and

intellectually fallacious. They are unscientific methods which will

inevitably be abandoned as we attain to clearer views of that unity of

truth in which the reconciliation of human conscience with intellectual

activity becomes alone recognised as science.

CHAPTER X

_Rational Experiment in Research_

As an illustration of legitimate and even heroic experiment, the trial

made with cholera bacilli by Dr. Von Pettenkofer of Munich on himself

during the cholera epidemic of 1891 deserves permanent record.[19] It

is of importance as showing the fallacy that may be involved in the

exaggerated search for bacilli, as the chief cause of disease, which is

the favourite theory and practice of the present day.

Dr. Von Pettenkofer (in opposition to the common medical belief)

asserts that the diffusion of the cholera germ or cholera bacillus is

not the chief cause of cholera. He states that there are two other

absolutely necessary conditions, without which no outbreak of cholera

is possible, and if these conditions are not present, the cholera germ

may be breathed with no production of cholera.

The first condition is the unhealthy state of the soil or locality. But

even this does not produce an outbreak if the second condition does

not exist--viz., individual predisposition; and he shows that neither

the cholera germ nor the insanitary locality, nor both combined, will

produce cholera if this individual predisposition does not exist. He

further states that no experiments upon the lower animals can be relied

on; the only _proof_ in relation to cholera must be from the experience

of human beings.

Dr. Von Pettenkofer proceeded to experiment on himself, choosing

Munich, in daily communion with Hamburg (where the epidemic was

raging), as the place of operations, and sent to Hamburg for the

cholera germs. On October 7 he swallowed a centimetre of fresh cholera

culture, in the presence of witnesses--_i.e._, infinitely more than

could be taken in by touching the lips with contaminated fingers, a

cubic centimetre of culture being calculated as containing a thousand

million microbes. He in no way changed his manner of living, eating

accustomed food, including fruit, cucumbers, and other forbidden

articles of diet. During the following week his physiological

condition, pulse, temperature, etc., were carefully noted. Nothing

unusual occurred but a little internal rumbling and slight diarrhœa,

which passed away of itself. Two skilled bacteriologists, MM. Peiffer

and Emerich, carefully examined the secretions during this experiment.

M. Von Pettenkofer himself thus states the results:

‘The comma bacilli not only prospered in my digestive tube, but had so

multiplied in it that it was evident they found a congenial soil. They

were found there in quantities, and in a state of pure culture. But

on October 14 all the secretions were normal, only containing a few

isolated microbes, which had entirely disappeared on the 18th.

‘Now, most bacteriologists assert that the cholera bacilli remaining in

the intestines secrete there a poison, which, being absorbed, produces

the cholera. But what a quantity of poison must have been secreted

by these milliards of bacilli during the eight days’ sojourn in my

intestines! Yet I felt perfectly well, had an excellent appetite, felt

neither indigestion nor fever, etc., and I attended every day to my

usual occupations. Whence I conclude that the comma bacillus, though

it may cause a little diarrhœa, produces neither European nor Asiatic

cholera.

‘Now, it must not be imagined that I am the adversary of the cholera

bacillus; but it is erroneous to suppose that when a specific microbe

has been discovered in the secretions of an infectious disease that the

means of fighting it has also been discovered. The discovery of the

bacillus of consumption was just as interesting as the discovery of

the cholera bacillus, but since its discovery phthisis has destroyed

neither one man less nor one man more.

‘These (bacteriological) methods for protection against cholera rest

purely upon theory, and it seems to be thought that henceforth cholera,

etc., ought to behave according to the prevalent theory, instead of

theory being modified according to the cholera. Instead of trying to

catch the comma bacillus and draw a cordon around it, the essential

thing is to make all the dwelling-places of man healthy.’

Such is the vigorous and genuinely scientific experiment of a

distinguished medical investigator.

Other experimenters have confirmed Dr. Von Pettenkofer’s observations.

On October 17 Dr. Emerich made a similar experiment on himself, with

like results.

Since then, experiments have been made in the Vienna Pathological

Institute, with the following results: Six persons partook of the comma

bacillus in no mean quantity, and not one of them has had the disease.

The six are two doctors, the servant of the Institute, two medical

students, and a private gentleman. Professor Stricker treated them

all. Two did not feel their health impaired at all; one had headache,

was slightly feverish, and could not sleep; two had slight attacks of

diarrhœa; and only one was really ill, but recovered at the end of a

week. These experiments inspire medical men with serious misgivings as

to the theory which considers the comma bacillus as the cause of all

cholera.

The supremacy of sanitation is the lesson which is being gradually

taught by such humane scientific experiments. Dirt in its largest

sense, as matter in the wrong place, whether in air, water, food,

clothing, habitation, soil, or contact, is undoubtedly a main physical

cause of disease.

But in all epidemic disease the emotion of fear must be recognised as a

most potent predisposing cause. The great fact of mind or emotion is a

powerful influence in producing, in preventing, or in curing disease.

This psychological side of medicine is only beginning to receive due

attention. As the fallacies which arise in animal experimentation

from the production of fear, pain, and coma have not yet been fully

recognised, so the inevitable influence of mind in modifying physical

conditions has never yet been studied scientifically in human medicine.

Yet facts exist in unsuspected abundance which need to be collected,

verified, tabulated, and their laws of action diligently studied.

It is known that even that strong muscle the heart may be ruptured by

the agony of intense emotion. At Blackburn the daughter of a woman

charged with theft became dumb with horror at her mother’s sudden

arrest. Hydrophobia, cholera, and even small-pox, appear to have been

caused by fear.

The extent to which even the so-called microbes of infectious

diseases may be produced by fear acting on idiosyncrasy demands very

serious investigation; for as it is now generally conceded that morbid

micro-organisms do not exist _ab æterno_, it is essential to know by

what unhealthy conditions the micro-organisms, or living particles that

always surround us, become disease germs.

One of our most distinguished London physicians has full records of

the following noteworthy case, which is given, not as scientifically

proved, but as indicating a line of research which it is folly to

ignore or refuse to investigate.

This gentleman attended a patient some years ago in an attack of

confluent small-pox under these remarkable circumstances: This

patient had always exhibited a morbid horror of the disease, refusing

to hear anything about it or to allow it to be referred to in his

presence. A friend on one occasion brought a very fine collection of

anatomical plates to show him, sent over from France. Amongst them

was a representation of confluent small-pox in a woman. No sooner had

this gentleman beheld it than he cried, ‘Take it away! I cannot look

at it; it makes me ill!’ The next day his son sent for the doctor to

see his father, who had felt unwell ever since the shock of seeing the

pathological plate. He was found suffering from the first symptoms of

an illness which proved to be an attack of confluent small-pox. The

most searching inquiry failed to discover any traces of the disease,

either in the neighbourhood or in any connection whatever with the

patient. The cause of this illness, one of the most severe cases the

doctor had ever met with, remained a mystery.

It has become of vital importance to investigate ‘how far the mental

attitude determines or permits the onset of infectious disease.’

CHAPTER XI

_The Range of Painless Research_

‘I am content to let Nature do all the torturing and man all the

relieving ... the grandest physiology and physiological discovery could

exist outside every shade of painful experiment.’[20]

These are the words of one of our wisest physicians, deliberately

written in the full maturity of a life devoted to original research and

its practical application to medicine. His experience led him to the

recognition of this great truth: that the supreme aim of the medical

profession must become more and more the advancement of sanitation. In

any comprehensive view of medical art as a science the cure of disease

is rationally secondary to its prevention.

This, notwithstanding the trade exigencies of competitive living,

is recognised by the established rule of the profession--that the

physician’s first duty is not to injure his patient.

Sanitation necessarily takes into consideration all the elements, both

mental and physical, of our complex nature.

It is by the investigation of the laws of healthy created life and

their practical application that progress in medicine must be looked

for. By observing ‘scientifically’ the method and variations of these

laws we shall approach nearer to the understanding of ‘vital force.’

An immense range of biological inquiry urgently invites the genius of

those who are gifted with the rare power of original research.

This range is practically unlimited. The collection of all useful

or suggestive facts gathered by genuinely scientific methods from

the enormous accumulations to be found in our Government reports, in

the records of our medical periodic literature, in the observations

of hospitals, societies, cliniques, and private practice, would, if

properly arranged and tabulated, form a most useful branch of such a

centre. If such collection and examination were extended to the records

of other countries, the value as well as labour of the work would be

greatly increased.

The observation of the dietetic and hygienic as well as medical

treatment of disease, including climate, soil, atmospheric conditions,

the distribution of disease, the effect of occupations, prenatal

influences, and later training, are essential.

The action of mineral waters, of compressed and medicated air, the

hydration of tissues, the conversion of vegetable into animal tissue,

the action of the various constituents of the human body as curative

of disease, present necessary subjects of investigation.

A careful judicial inquiry into the claims of specific cures, where

a sufficient case for investigation is presented (as _Echinacea

angustifolia_ in snake-bite, also the Russian bath as preventive of

hydrophobia), would form another valuable department.

In fact, it is impossible to specify the full range of important

subjects which demand the devotion of able and painstaking research,

working upon the careful study of each type of life for the benefit and

improvement of that type.

In no branch of this wide range of inquiry is painful experiment

necessary.

Our homes, our industrial occupations, our legislative enactments,

should all be guided by hygienic knowledge, and its diffusion should be

actively encouraged by the community. Our hospitals and dispensaries

need to promote practical hygiene. Our medical schools should turn the

force of their learning, ability, and great influence to the conversion

of their students into a vast body of sanitary missionaries. If our

thousands of medical graduates turned out every year into practice

could go forth inspired with enthusiasm for health, convinced that the

preservation of health was their especial work, and that all disease

must be regarded as a violation of the laws of health, a violation

which it was their special duty to fight against, a mighty step in the

advancement of medicine would be taken. The impulse to such progress

should come from improved instruction in our medical schools, and in

the management of our hospitals.

We much need also an unprejudiced and exhaustive history of the

progress of biological inquiry since the Middle Ages, with its present

result in therapeutics. Such a history may be expected to confirm the

not unfounded opinion that the most important advances in practical

medicine have been made by methods which are not in any way at variance

with our natural instincts of justice and mercy.

CHAPTER XII

_Recapitulation of Principles_

I. The attainment of truth, not the gratification of curiosity or of

personal ends, is the sole and distinctive aim of genuine scientific

research.

II. It is a radical intellectual error to apply the same methods of

investigation, suitable to inorganic facts, to the study of organic

facts. Natural law being mind ruling matter, every method employed

in research into organic Nature must respect and take into account

the inseparable mental factor in each type of sentient life, or it

becomes unscientific, and may promote fallacy, not truth. Destructive

experiment on living creatures, even under the partial suspension

of consciousness produced by anæsthetics, is an erroneous method,

producing confused or contradictory results.

III. Scientific research in biology must be based upon close and

extensive observation of the varying forms of animal life, under

natural conditions, with post-mortem examination of the records left by

health and disease. Experiments, whether for the repair of lesions or

the cure of disease, can only become scientific when made upon the type

of life to be benefited by the experiment.

IV. Any experimentation which creates involuntary suffering in living

creatures vitiates the necessary conditions of scientific research,

and tends to degrade human conscience by producing indifference to

suffering.

V. In training our future practitioners of the healing art, the

cultivation of respect for life and the strengthening of enlightened

sympathetic conscience in dealing with all poor or helpless creatures

are of paramount importance. The present system of medical education

requires revision in order to make health, not disease, the central

subject of study.

Finally, full and generous encouragement to those who are engaged in

important painless research is urgently needed. Such research should be

carried on, if possible, in connection with the great body of serious

scientific investigations, by persons of proved ability and clear moral

sense, and the work should be cordially open to the observation of all

earnest friends.

Such research, reconciling by right methods of investigation

intellectual activity with human conscience, would increase our

knowledge and advance our well-being in accordance with the higher

reason of the race. Only when thus guided by intelligence and

conscience can biological research deserve the noble name of science.

It is by the recognition of this true method of biological research

and by the generous support of physiologists who honestly seek for

truth, even when opposed by temporary fashions of medical opinion, that

medicine will become a science.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Sir B. W. Richardson, _Biological Experimentation: its Functions

and Limits_, p. 15.

[11] This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of the

French naturalist, Le Roy.

[12] The former horrors of the hospital operating-room are graphically

described from personal observation in Sir B. W. Richardson’s treatise,

_The Mastery of Pain_.

[13] See the standard work of Hirsch, _Handbook of Geographical and

Historical Pathology_ (New Sydenham Society), vol. ii., pp. 416-466.

The value of this translation is greatly increased by its excellent

index.

[14] Thus, the authorities of Paris ordered twenty friendless dogs to

be tied to the branches of trees in a wood, and a shell made in the

municipal laboratory exploded amongst them, riddling and mangling them

fearfully.

[15] The humane and carefully-guarded Bill drawn up by the Royal

Society for the Protection of Animals, and introduced by the Earl of

Harrowby and Lord Carnarvon, was rejected.

[16] The judicious remarks of Lord Farrer in relation to municipal

affairs apply equally to the subject under consideration. He says: ‘My

immediate object, however, is not to preach upon the general question,

but to make a practical suggestion. What we want to know is, Which of

the two ways of doing any particular work is the cheaper and better?

Much experience of public departments leads me to doubt their own

reports upon their own doings; not, of course, from any dishonesty on

the part of the officials, but from a natural tendency in every man to

make the best of what he does. It is for this reason, as well as from

want of sufficient experience, that I cannot feel absolute confidence

in the reports made to the London County Council on the results of

their own experiments.’

[17] ‘Professor Leon le Fort, Professor Verneuil, Professor Duplay,

and Professor Tillaux, have been asked by a public journal for their

opinions on the operative mania (_furie opératoire_) said to be

prevalent at present. Professor le Fort says it is much more widespread

in France than in other countries, and in a long letter he protests

against the custom amongst the young French surgeons, in order to

bring their names before the public, “to seek out some operation

unknown in France, then seek out a victim on whom they can perform

it, in order to report it before a medical society, and perhaps also

show the patient.” Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation

as a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a

reputation. Professor Verneuil protests against the abuse of operations

in general, and especially of gynæcological operations. He deplores the

prurigo secandi with which so many of the French surgeons are attacked.

Professor Duplay and Professor Tillaux express the same opinions.’ See

_Medical Reprints_, May, 1893.

[18] This naturalist, when amongst cannibals in the Emin Pasha

Expedition, bribed the cannibal tribe to eat a young negro girl.

[19] The entirely negative results of all experiments made upon the

lower animals to determine if cholera is communicable, or where the

poison resides, is demonstrated by an endless series of experiments on

the lower animals made in many countries. The extent and severity of

these experiments, as well as their inconclusiveness, is impartially

detailed in the classic work of Hirsch, _Handbook of Geographical and

Historical Pathology_, vol. i., pp. 476-480.

[20] Sir B. W. Richardson, _Biological Experimentation: its Function

and Limits_, pp. 92, 93.

CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM

_THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE EASTER SEASON, 1882_

CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM

About thirty years ago a little band of ardent and earnest men joined

themselves together as Christian Socialists, under the guidance of

the Rev. F. Maurice, Rev. Chas. Kingsley, and other able and hopeful

leaders. They shared in a high degree that ardent desire after

‘Practical Christianity’--that embodiment in every act of daily life of

the spirit of our Master’s teachings--which has always existed in the

Christian Church, and which can only cease with the disappearance of

the Christian faith.

The grand idea of human brotherhood is a vital principle of our Lord’s

teaching. It is the foundation on which He builds His Church. But

practical Christianity cannot exist unless political and social economy

are founded upon this principle of brotherhood. Trade and manufactures,

agriculture and education, national government and the individual

home, are not Christian unless they are inspired by this central

principle, laid down by our Divine Master, and reiterated in every page

of His wonderful life--viz., that we must live as brethren under the

inspiration of a wise and loving Father.

Attempts to realize more fully this fundamental portion of the

Christian faith, by special associated efforts, have always been

observed in every age. From those early times when the disciples laid

their offerings at the Apostles’ feet, and strove to ‘have all things

in common,’ to the present day, the attempt to secure higher ends by

the power of combination--a combination inspired by the highest idea of

right--is always going on.

Christian Socialism, therefore, is no new idea. It is as old as

our faith. It is the shaping of actual daily life on the principle

of Christian brotherhood. It enters in some degree into every

association--church, chapel, or society of any kind whatsoever--which

seeks to embody an unselfish or a higher spiritual idea; but the

Christian Socialist believes that the structure of society in every

part should be moulded by the idea of united interests.

The very gradual acquisition of wisdom by our race, however (a slowness

which seems to be the necessary condition for securing both freedom and

strength), leads to the frequent exercise of zeal without knowledge.

Direct attempts to join people together under better conditions

than the haphazard methods by which villages swell into towns have

frequently ended in failure.

But each successive generation enters upon active life with increased

intellectual development and with increased command over material

forces. If equal enlargement of the moral nature accompanies the growth

of intelligence, then the generation has made a solid advance in

wisdom, and the practical Christianity of true brotherhood is nearer at

hand. The Christian Socialist believes that many principles on which a

better society must be founded have come into clearer light during the

past thirty years, and have been, and are being, tested by varied and

valuable experiment.

The term Christian is here used in a legitimate practical sense.

Reverently and heartily a Christian must accept the rule and guide of

life so emphatically laid down by our Master--viz., that in eating and

drinking, in buying and selling, at home and abroad, we are to act for

our brethren, not for ourselves alone. We are to seek, first of all,

righteousness.

The problem we have to face is the ever-increasing amount and

variety of evils which we see around us, and to ascertain how far

this is caused by the present selfish structure of society, by the

false individualism which hypocritically asks, ‘Am I my brother’s

keeper?’ Evils now increase upon us more rapidly than we can remove

them. Pauperism and vice, drunkenness and crime, mammon worship and

frivolity, dishonesty and corruption, are all bred by ourselves. They

are largely produced by the conditions of the society into which

children are born, and by which they are moulded. Ten years of squalor

or degrading conditions may deteriorate or ruin the nature of the

child. My attention was once called to a bright and charming little

girl, brought to a public institution by a poor mother fallen into

sickness and poverty. One year was given to the mother to reclaim her

child. On a subsequent visit, after eighteen months’ interval, I failed

to recognise that child; her brightness was gone, her movements had

grown listless and awkward, her intelligence was dulled, her expression

vacant, she was sinking with frightful rapidity into the hopeless

pauper.

How pitiful are the results of our penitentiaries and reformatories,

of our workhouses, orphan asylums, and industrial schools, of all

the various charities by which we painfully and vainly try to mop up

evil and misery, or to sweep it out of our sight. The recipients of

punishment or care, when released, in the large majority of cases, fall

back again into the crime, temptation, and evil from which they had

been taken, and the flood of ruffianism and vice rises ever higher.

In the hard and crushing strife for decent living in which the great

mass of our population are entangled, health is injured, hope dies out,

and the gas-lighted gin-shop is the solace, as the dreary workhouse

is the refuge of those who have ceased to hope. Yet the great mass of

these persons have tried to do honest work. They have once hoped to

support wife and children as an honest man should do. How is it that

capital and labour have failed to come together in such a way that

every willing worker can secure a comfortable livelihood, that every

honest man can bring up his family in health and virtue? The relation

of capital to labour is a vital question of practical Christianity.

Consider also the great agrarian fight always going on to some extent

and periodically breaking out in revolution and outrage. Why is it that

the great bulk of English men and women are divorced from the soil?

Why are they always crowding into towns, whilst the precious natural

heritage of land is so often wasted and going out of cultivation?

Health and happiness should be found in country life. Such a life

should not be one of dreariness and ennui, or of hopeless drudgery.

There is no life so suitable for the healthy development of childhood

as a country life, with natural home influences. The care of animals,

the cultivation and observation of natural objects, the pure air and

abundant exercise which can be enjoyed, mark the country as the natural

home of childhood. Again, the production in perfection and abundance of

all the articles which naturally belong to various soils is a primary

need of healthy national growth. The conditions under which such

cultivation can be best carried on, with the kind and proportion of

manufactures which might advantageously spring up in connection with

it, affect the very structure of society. They provide the necessary

material and social conditions which furnish the possibility and

favouring of a religious life, or which create serious obstacles to

such a life.

The relation of the people to the soil of their native land is a very

serious question of practical Christianity.

Again, in what manner is the education of the various classes of our

children carried on? Consider the education given to the boys of the

aristocracy and upper classes. What chance have these lads of growing

into a sense of Christian brotherhood? They are fawned upon from

babyhood; initiated at school into the most heathen vices; corrupted

by luxury, taught that money can do everything, that rank will be

servilely worshipped. How can these poor lads become the large-hearted

leaders of a society founded on the Great Master’s teaching of

brotherhood? The character of education does not depend only on the

more or less wise oversight and arrangements of the schoolmaster, but

still more on the constant influences of the life in which the child

grows up. Trace the various stages of education downwards, through

all classes of the community, to the enormous mass of little boys and

girls trained from babyhood into vice and ruffianism, and we see that

education is a vital subject of practical Christianity.

Consider next the relations of the sexes. This subject is the

fundamental question of society, for the element of society is the

man, woman, and child, not the individual. How do our laws and customs

inculcate manly honour, womanly dignity--in short, Christian life?

Carefully studying this subject in its widespread ramifications, it

is seen to be the deepest question of human brotherhood--_i.e._, of

practical Christianity.

When, proceeding from more private to public affairs, we examine the

modifications or arrangements of municipal institutions which have

arisen in our towns, the examination is not encouraging. It is the

heathen, not the Christian, principle which is chiefly exemplified.

It is self intensified. The new power created throws off a sense

of responsibility to those who create it. No enlarged sense of

duty springs from the trust that is thus given to individuals; but

petty cabals and bickerings arise, narrow party views are fostered,

selfish interests advanced, or a foolish air of authority is assumed.

The more high-minded inhabitants shrink from entering into corrupt

political contest; centralization increases as municipal control is

degraded. Local and general government is too often only a parody of

representative institutions. The important question arises, In what way

can we who believe that public as well as private life should be guided

by a religious spirit attain the end? How can we form associations and

delegate necessary authority in such a way as to advance Christian,

not heathen, life? In observing the effect of Law upon the education

of a nation, we find that its embodiment in government forms a very

important branch of practical Christianity.

When we ponder all these vital questions, and earnestly strive to

put into practice the principles of action which we believe to be

profoundly true, we find our Christian sense of right shocked at every

turn by fixed conditions, which are the result of selfishness, not of

brotherhood. The spirit of self-interest, only useful as a servant,

has usurped the false position of master. Like all our faculties,

self-interest needs a higher guidance, or it degenerates into the

narrowest selfishness. We have not yet learned the one grand lesson of

Christianity--viz., that the largest view of self-interest can only be

found in brotherhood.

The inquiry now to be made is whether any new principles of

association, co-operation, combination--or by whatever name we choose

to express united interests--have so grown and been proved within the

last generation, that we may make successful advance on the path dimly

seen by the noble men I have referred to.

There have been many failures in attempts at the realization of

associated or organized life; but there are also many and striking

examples of successful, though imperfect, organization, founded either

upon a religious idea or on business enterprise, or on the enthusiasm

of some clever and benevolent individual. Roman Catholic, Moravian,

and Shaker communities will illustrate the first series of successful

organization; joint-stock enterprises and co-operative stores the

second; Leclaire’s house decorators’ guild and the Familistère of Guise

the third. It is through union of the forces exemplified in these three

classes of association that we may attain to a nineteenth-century

realization of practical Christianity in the future growth of towns or

colonies.

The following are some of the chief applications of the principle of

Christian brotherhood, which we believe will remould the structure of

future society:

1. The repurchase of land by Christian joint-stock companies, in order

that its control and management may henceforth belong to those who live

upon it and use it.

The absolute irresponsible individual possession of land becomes, as

society advances, contrary to the best interests of a nation. The soil,

which is limited in quantity, but indispensable to the maintenance and

welfare of the people, should not be treated as an individual selfish

speculation, regardless of its most advantageous use, and of the needs

of those who may live upon it.

It is the slow but sure result of the irresponsible monopoly of the

soil by individuals which is at the root of a great evil--viz., the

unnatural and diseased growth of great unorganized or selfishly

organized towns. Our towns, formerly the haphazard growth of accident,

are becoming more and more the growth of selfish speculation--_i.e._,

the false organization of self-aggrandizement. The hereditary or

other holder of land leases it to speculators, whose one object is

to make as much pecuniary profit as possible out of the lease. This

is the one point held steadily in view, often through a series of

underletting, in which each fresh speculator seeks to make a new

profit. Health, convenience, human welfare in its necessities and

interlinkings, are never thought of, or are entirely secondary to

gain. A showy neighbourhood for the rich, yielding the highest rents

that can be screwed out, and a crowded neighbourhood for the poor,

with still higher proportionate rents, are created. Gardens disappear

in the dreary mass of showy, badly-constructed brick-and-mortar

quarters in which the young generation grows up--dreary quarters, but

where rents and rates are constantly rising. This is the result of

irresponsible individual ownership and perverted organization in all

our rapidly-growing towns. It is a potent cause of growing immorality.

The control of land by a society or colony living upon it and using it,

does not forbid the leasing of land, under wise conditions, to persons

who are members of the society. It is the irresponsible individual

possession of land, with the speculation which such a method of holding

gives rise to, which is the principle always ultimately injurious to

society.[21]

2. Economy in distribution and management. A rational economy in the

retail distribution of products, in the domestic arrangements of our

homes, in the official management of local and general government, will

set free an immense number of persons whose time is now needlessly

occupied. The talent and energy of this wasted multitude should be

turned to increase of production and other necessary and valuable

employment, under the wise freedom of united interests.

3. A fair share of profits to all workers. This is a most important

principle, which can only be solved under the guidance of Christian

brotherhood. In the increased production which will result from wise

economy in distribution, management, and government, an equitable

division of profits between capital, ability, and labour must be

arranged. Interests must be united, industry stimulated, and hope held

out to the humblest worker in a Christian colony. When a young man

commences life in the honourable estate of Christian marriage, it is

the first duty of Christian society to support his hope and energy. The

future of this family is a matter of national concern. Steady industry

deserves a fair and increasing share in the profits it helps to

create. Counsel, if needed, encouragement to the mother in the healthy

and virtuous education of her children, and opportunity for hopeful

occupation, are all positive duties owed to every member of a Christian

society. The fulfilment of this duty depends in a great measure upon

the righteous relation of capital to labour.

4. The formation of insurance funds which will secure aid to every

worker in sickness or old age. Thrift, self-control, and an honourable

sense of independence are the results of such provision, which would be

the greatest possible aid to the noble temperance movement.

5. An arrangement of dwellings which will facilitate communication,

domestic service and supply, sanitary arrangement, the education of

children, and municipal government. These objects must be secured if

the rapid degradation of our poorer English homes is to be checked.

Parental influence and responsibility are equally disappearing in the

homes from which all sanctity has departed.

6. The entire abolition of all trade in the human body.

The waste of virile force and the degradation of womanly character

which result from the barbarous remnant of slavery existing in our

midst under the form of prostitution is incalculable. No community

which aspires to Christian life can permit this hideous trade to

exist. The buying and selling the human body is a natural wrong. The

fearful evils, moral and physical, which result from such trade prove

its inherent iniquity. Love, with the duties and responsibilities

which accompany its expression, is the only Christian warrant for the

intimate union of the sexes, and the growth and welfare of society

absolutely depends upon the wise guidance of these relations by

Christian principle. The wonderful advance of intelligence and moral

perception on this vital subject during the present generation is

the most hopeful sign of the nearer approach of organized Christian

society. As a striking contrast to growing immorality, the possibility

and incalculable benefit of equal purity for boys and girls, for men

and women, is the great truth which is springing into vigorous life

in this Nineteenth Century. A new world of hope and freedom opens to

women, a new realm of energy to men, from the consecration of this

mighty power of sex, which is descending upon our age as a great guide

for the future. This God-created force has hitherto been squandered

in these earlier centuries of our world’s life. Ignorance of woman’s

true dignity and providential position has been the greatest obstacle

hitherto in the Christian organization of society. This ignorance now

slowly but surely vanishing, opens to us a great and glorious promise

of unlimited future progress.

The principles thus expressed in very condensed form appear, from

their present maturer development, to be the especial gain of this

age. They are the legitimate results of Christian thought, growing in

comprehensiveness, and conscientiously applying itself to a solution of

the problems of social life.

Every proposition now set forth requires, however, long and careful

consideration. Some persons may not realize the dangerous and growing

evils which the prevalence of opposite methods of action is inflicting

on society. Young countries possessing abundance of unoccupied land may

not appreciate evils from which older countries suffer from individual

monopoly of land. Other persons may fail to see the full bearing

of these principles of Christian Socialism on our daily relations.

Others, again, may be entirely unable to foresee the methods by which a

Christian organization of society can ever become a practical fact. For

these reasons union in preparation is indispensable. The wisest ways

of realizing these principles in all their practical details require

the varied knowledge of different classes of persons. They require the

careful consideration of many minds, possessing both varied experience

and a profound sense of the necessity of Christian organization. If,

however, the principles laid down are true, then their realization must

be only a question of time. In our towns much may be done to place both

business relations and domestic life on a sounder basis. The gradual

introduction of methods leading in the right direction is possible,

by both men and women, in the two spheres of business and home life,

when the end to be obtained is thoroughly understood. A still more

rapid advance may be made by those who wish to establish country life

on a more Christian plan by uniting religious principle, joint-stock

enterprise, and wise guidance in the organization of an industrial

colony--a colony which would be the most potent Christian Missionary

Society.

Religious principle must be recognised as the essential basis of

permanent future growth. Only a large comprehension of the Christian

teaching of human brotherhood creates the highest conscientiousness,

with a sense of responsibility to an unseen but parental Creator. No

accumulation of material wealth, no appeal to the lower faculties of

our nature alone or chiefly, will ever hold human beings together in

permanent and harmonious organization of daily life.

Christian conscientiousness is the only power we know of, capable

of controlling and guiding selfhood. This controlling force is

indispensable in any wise effort to unite human beings together in

the varied interests of everyday life. Without religious principle

we possess no efficient check either upon the selfish scramble for

wealth, or on the soulless pursuit of science, or on the enthralment of

physical pleasure.

Consider some of our popular social maxims--‘Charity begins at home,’

‘Take care of No. 1,’ ‘Competition is the life of trade,’ ‘Demand

must govern supply,’ ‘Buy cheap and sell dear,’ etc. No one will deny

that there is an element of truth in all these maxims; but their

direct logical results, pushed to an extreme under the sole guidance

of selfish interest, become diabolical. This is clearly illustrated

by a remark once made to my own father by a Southern sugar-planter.

He stated that he could raise slaves so cheaply that it was the most

profitable plan to use them up in five or six years, and supply their

place with fresh ones!

The same necessity for the guiding influence of Christian

conscientiousness is seen in the pursuit of science. The modern

dicta, ‘Medicine has nothing to do with morality,’ ‘Knowledge is its

own end and justification,’ are the maxims of heathen, not Christian

philosophers. Indeed, many of those who now pursue scientific

investigation willingly assent to this statement, having lost all

knowledge of the value of true Christianity as the highest spiritual

guide of our race.

Accepting, then, the principle of Christian brotherhood as the

necessary religious foundation and constant guide of any true

organization, it is evident that all these weighty problems, now

briefly indicated must be considered and solved by the ‘Church.’